If you are using a backend for your plugin, what do you use?
I’m using NodeJS with a basic JSON database (nedb) on Glitch.com but I’d like to go a bit more serious for my next project. I need the backend for an API which would validate license purchases through Gumroad API (small part) and could store and send some plugin user data (main part).
I feel very lost because most of the hosting providers I can find require you to set up a VM and I don’t want to. Are there simpler methods? Am I even searching in the right direction? I found some platforms but how do I know they are the right fit?
I haven’t had change to try using a server with any of my plugins yet. But I know a couple of server providers I’ve used in the past which were pretty good.
Linode is fairly good and was reasonably priced when I used it. Although it does require going into VMs and configuring them etc.
Digital Ocean is a bit more expensive but removes the hassle of manually having to configure things.
Lastly a sort of left field idea. You could try Userbase. I’m curious if you could combine it with Vercel or Netlify to create a database of user accounts.
Thanks for your help Gavin! Looks like Vultr, Linode and DigitalOcean actually are exactly the same in pricing. And they all require you to set things up manually. :·(
Userbase won’t work for my use-cases. Vercel and Netlify require you to write special functions which I have no idea how to do yet, I’ll look into them. They are pretty expensive if you need to upgrade though (although unlikely).
I’d recommend Heroku with Nodejs + Express - would be much easier to set up than using those providers and you can just click some buttons to set up the database.
Depends how intensive the usage is - it can get expensive but I’ve gone pretty far on the $7 / month dyno in the past. Sounds like you wouldn’t be making that many API calls if you are just using it to validate purchases though?
Oh, I didn’t know about the Hobby plan! I think that might work. I’ll look into that.
If I only needed purchase validation, I would continue using Glitch… But I need to store some custom user data (from user actions), so I need a DB. I just updated the post to make it a bit more clear.
